


how can I ever try to be better

by possibilityleft



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Force Ghosts, Gen, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Missing Scene, The Force, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-16 08:17:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5820991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan and the aftermath of Anakin's betrayal.</p><p>Darth Vader and the aftermath of Obi-Wan's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. how can I ever try to be better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plinys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/gifts).



> This is tagged Major Character Death because of Obi-Wan; no non-canonical deaths occur.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan and his legacy.

Obi-Wan had a job to do. This had been true for as long as he could remember, and he was going to do it. It didn't matter that he couldn't sleep, that food tasted like nothing to him. A Jedi could put aside these things until they could be addressed. It didn't matter that nearly everyone he knew was dead. Or rather, it mattered so much, the aching hole in his heart, the bleak emptiness when he reached out into the Force, that he pushed past it like he would lift a heavy object with the Force, pretending it had no weight and fit perfectly into the environment.

He wasn't alone, except that he felt he was. They were all embedded in their private pains. Obi-Wan felt the wash of emotion every time he passed someone aboard the ship, not even having to look up to identify them -- there went Bail towards the children's room, weary and grieving, with an edge of guilty excitement at the idea of keeping Leia with him. Obi-Wan didn't tell him that he shouldn't feel guilty for adopting the orphan: it was the best thing for her, really. Luke would live a harder life. 

Obi-Wan didn't know much about babies. He'd held a few in his time, cooed over them when appropriate, but parenting was another thing entirely. The Larses would take the child from him, but when he landed on Tattoine and walked out of the spaceport, he was the only one holding the child, shielded in his cloak against the sandy wind.

Tattoine hadn't changed much, a fact Obi-Wan found some comfort in; it was still an Outer Rim planet, ignored by almost everyone who might be looking for Jedi. If he stayed out of sight and didn't call attention to himself, he'd be fine. By the time the bountyhunters brought word of the Jedi betrayal (an untruth, utterly, except that Obi-Wan kept seeing Anakin's cold _eyes_ ), no one would remember he'd passed through.

The baby was asleep. Threepio had fed him before Obi-Wan had left the ship. In anticipation of her need, Padme had had some basic childcare modules installed in the droid's circuitry. Those remained even after his memory was wiped. He alone among the people on the ship was glad to see Obi-Wan when he visited, always greeting him respectfully and reporting on the babies' progress (such that there was, apparently weight gain was quite crucial in these early days). When Obi-Wan and Luke had left, Threepio had waved after them. Artoo had whistled, and the protocol droid had snapped, "Of course we'll see them again!"

Ignorance was bliss, Obi-Wan thought. He paid a ridiculous sum for a speeder, which he hated to do because it marked him as an obvious off-worlder, but he couldn't travel out into the desert on foot with an infant. He used the Force to blur the memory of the being who sold it to him, just a little. She wouldn't be able to recall his face, just that his coin was good.

It was late when he arrived at the Lars household. He knew they would have heard him coming from a long way away, but he wasn't sure if he'd be greeted. Judging by the lack of light, they'd powered down for the night. Luke had slept for the entire journey, nestled against Obi-Wan's chest. He was the quieter twin by far, most likely to cry when Leia had started first, in sympathy, Obi-Wan suspected.

He knocked, and waited. He lifted a hand to knock again, but he could hear someone coming, their steps heavy on the stone floor. When Owen opened the door, Obi-Wan saw no recognition in the man's eyes. He pushed back his hood, and after a moment, Owen realized who he was.

"Jedi," he said, and hesitated; he'd clearly forgotten Obi-Wan's name.

"Can I come in?" Obi-Wan asked, and Owen squinted but moved out of the doorway. Beru came from the bedroom yawning and wiping at her eyes.

"Who are you talking to, dear?" she asked, and then she recognized him too.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," she said in amazement, and then he felt a wash of worry from her. What he had to say wouldn't calm her, he knew, and regretted it all the more.

"It's been a long time," Beru said. "Please come in. Can I get you a drink?"

"Some water would be wonderful," Obi-Wan said, and he smiled at her to see if it would help put her at ease, even though the smile felt unnatural on his face.

"Sit down," Owen said gruffly; he was realizing at least some of what Obi-Wan's visit meant, Obi-Wan thought. This was an Outer Rim planet, sure, but they knew about the war.

Obi-Wan didn't want to sit, because that would mean he'd have to pull Luke from his little nest in Obi-Wan's shirt, but the baby made the decision for him, waking up, sighing, and stretching. Obi-Wan lifted him out before he could start to cry. Owen's eyes grew wide.

"I thought Jedi didn't have kids," he blurted out. "Shmi, she compl -- mentioned it a couple times."

This didn't surprise Obi-Wan. He'd never known his parents, not that he remembered, but he'd helped take younglings to the Temple before, and he'd heard the protests and sadness of parents who were losing both their children and their opportunity for grandchildren, for all that it was a good cause. At least, Obi-Wan had thought so. He'd never known differently. He wondered for a moment if his parents had felt the same, but then viciously yanked himself back to the present. Beru returned with a glass of water, her robe wrapped more securely around her, and she was looking at the baby too.

"They aren't supposed to," Obi-Wan said, and he couldn't prevent the fond irritation from creeping into his voice. He thought of Anakin again then, but couldn't picture him as they had been before. He couldn't get his last vision of him out of his head. It was no wonder he couldn't sleep.

The fondness was gone, then. "The Jedi are dead. Anakin has gone to the Dark Side, and he is dead or worse. This is his son. He needs a home."

Beru turned her whole upper body to Owen, ignoring Obi-Wan completely to share a moment of non-verbal communication with her husband. Obi-Wan saw desperation in the way she clutched at his arm. It was infertility then, most likely, that kept their home childless.

Owen sighed. "I guess if we said no, you'd take him to an orphanage," he said, staring at Obi-Wan instead of his wife.

"It is not… safe for me to raise him," Obi-Wan said. "I must go into exile on this planet under a different name so that no one can connect me to him. No one can know."

Owen nodded. "We'll take him," he said, and before the words were out of his mouth, Beru had scooped the baby from Obi-Wan's arms. Luke was tolerant of the handover, sucking on a finger when she provided him one.

"Thank you," Obi-Wan said, and he meant it. He felt a steel weight lift from his chest. He had given up his most precious responsibility into good care. He could not fight the war any longer; it was over. He could not be a Jedi. He could not be a parent. He was no longer a brother.

What was left?

The Larses offered him a bed for the night, but he declined. He strode off into the sand wastes, walking until exhaustion forced him to shelter under an overhang of rock, covered only in his cloak for warmth. He shivered himself into a light doze that sufficed until the sun grew high enough to begin walking again.

*

He circled around eventually. Something in him didn't want to die yet. He bought supplies at Tosche, enough to live on for a while if he was careful, and eventually chose a territory of his own. It was near enough to the Larses that he could keep an eye on Luke without any of them knowing, but far enough for privacy.

Obi-Wan didn't speak to other beings for weeks at a stretch. The Jawas and Sand People quickly learned to leave him alone. Few others ventured out so far.

He started talking to himself. He'd grown up in the Temple, surrounded by others for his entire life. He'd learned to sense them even when they weren't in the same room as he was, to feel them in the Force around him. Here, he had no one but himself for company, and no one was here to appreciate his quips; there was no one to quip to.

He meditated a lot on what Yoda had taught him about life beyond death -- life in the Force, which never died. Yoda had said that Qui-Gon had achieved it, and that all Jedi masters had the potential. This was probably why Obi-Wan opened his eyes one morning and saw Anakin standing over him, ghostly blue, smiling like he hadn't done for months before his fall. Obi-Wan blinked and fell out of bed. The ghost disappeared.

He'd dreamed it. He knew he had. Master or not, Anakin had decided to seek immortality in life, just like his master. He would never speak to Obi-Wan again. He was gone.

Three years passed before Qui-Gon Jinn appeared to Obi-Wan, looking just the same as he had when he died. This time, when Obi-Wan tripped, his legs no longer supporting him, Qui-Gon was still there when he got up.

He and Qui-Gon talked a lot after that, but he never dared to ask him about his vision of Anakin. Mostly they talked about "the boy"; somehow not mentioning Luke's name made it easier to ignore where he had come from, where he'd be going.

"As you know, sometimes the Force can give you visions of the future," Qui-Gon said in passing later, and Obi-Wan hesitated too long. But of course he wasn't seeing the future when he saw Anakin. He was seeing the past.

Anakin was dead now. Only Darth Vader remained.

*

The older Luke became, the more Obi-Wan spent time with him. He had a passionate curiosity and stellar reflexes, and an innate sense of kindness and gentleness that Obi-Wan thought came from Padme. He wondered sometimes how Leia was turning out under Bail's tutelage. He eventually heard that she'd become a Senator, which didn't surprise him at all.

But most of Obi-Wan's observations of Luke had to occur from a distance. Owen had told him to stay away in no uncertain terms. He had no love for the Jedi Order and the way he saw it, it had destroyed his family. Obi-Wan wasn't inclined to argue with him on that point. Luke should have been trained from an early age, but a Force-sensitive child might broadcast his presence across the planet, which was dangerous. Vader could not know Luke had survived. Not yet.

It was better not to tell the boy that he was foretold, or a chosen one. He should grow up humbly, Obi-Wan thought, fumbling to correct the mistakes they'd made with Anakin.

When Luke was ten, Obi-Wan went to the Lars household on a day when he knew that Beru and Luke were in town buying groceries. He found Owen repairing a broken piece of farm equipment. When Obi-Wan approached, his boots crunching loudly in the sand to announce his arrival, Owen hurried to his feet, holding his wrench like a weapon. Obi-Wan waited.

"What do you want?" Owen asked. He grunted, running his hand over the chassis of the machine, looking for cracks. "I thought I told you not to come around here anymore."

"He should have his father's lightsaber," Obi-Wan said. "And there are other things that must be done soon."

Owen spat. He didn't spit in Obi-Wan's direction -- he was just polite enough to avoid that -- but it still conveyed his feelings on the matter.

"I've told the boy that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter," Owen said. "Now he can't talk about anything but going to space. Never stops talking, mouth like a broken protocol droid."

Thinking of Threepio, Obi-Wan wanted to smile at the comparison, but he didn't. It was a good story, he thought, and it would work for Luke for now, but it wouldn't last.

"I won't have it," Owen went on. "Let the Jedi die. What good have you crazy wizards ever done out here?" He waved a hand, gesturing at the sand dunes. "The boy's happy and well-fed. He has a job and a bed here as long as he wants. Leave it alone, Kenobi."

There were so many things Obi-Wan could say. The Empire wouldn't leave them alone, should they ever find out. Luke would come to him eventually, and he did not want to lie. What would happen if Luke went out into the universe as a powerful, untrained Force-sensitive? What if he had children of his own? What then, of Anakin's legacy?

He nodded his head in acknowledgment, and walked away.

*

It was easier than Obi-Wan thought it would be to meet Anakin again -- perhaps because the man in front of him was nothing like he once had been. Masked, taller, his rage crackling in the Force around them -- this was _Vader_ , at least until he started speaking. The voice was different too, but the words mattered.

Padme had said before she died that she thought there was still some good in her husband. Obi-Wan saw it now. The years between them had helped. Vader was desperate to eliminate him, to get rid of anything that reminded him of the real life he had once lived.

He was ashamed. And the shame meant that he understood he'd done something horribly wrong.

Obi-Wan's last thoughts were of Luke. He hoped Luke would be able to see the truth of it too. He wished, then, that he had told Luke the truth, instead of arming him and pointing him in this direction. He'd given Luke a lightsaber but not the safety warnings. He'd used the boy as a weapon, and now that weapon was without direction.

No, he would have direction. Yoda still lived. The Force remained.

The lightsaber only burned for a moment, and then Obi-Wan was gone into the next adventure.


	2. been a lot of lonely places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Vader sees things. He tries to ignore them.

Sometimes, when Vader was in his meditation pod, he saw things. He knew they were illusions, or dreams, or a mix of both. When one reached into the Force, especially the Dark Side, sometimes it answered in unexpected ways. The Emperor encouraged him to imagine the life he could have had, if only the Jedi hadn't stripped it away from him. For many years, his favorite dream was of Obi-Wan's slow and painful death, or forcing him to live as he did, to show him the way he'd made Anakin feel, stripping away everything that mattered to him.

That dream had faded as time passed and he adjusted to the life that was left him. Surely Obi-Wan was dead by now, he had thought. It was a waste of time to dwell.

The day that Obi-Wan died, Vader took off his helmet, breathed deeply of the sterile white air, and remembered it. When he'd finally struck down the man who had destroyed him, it hadn't been satisfying. Obi-Wan had disappeared nearly before Vader's lightsaber had struck him.

"I will become more powerful than you ever imagined," Obi-Wan had said, with that crooked smile of his, a grin that hadn't changed in all these decades. Vader hadn't hesitated to strike anyway, growing even more angry as he did.

He knew Obi-Wan was right.

He turned his mind to something else.

*

Obi-Wan appeared without fanfare almost two months later. Vader wasn't in his meditation pod. There was little time for such things now. He was busy breaking in a new captain and answering the demands of his emperor. It was late, or at least he had been awake for almost two days. The ship was never dark. Vader lived on the edge of exhaustion at the best of times; sleep was painful and hard in his suit. He had only stopped in his stateroom for a moment before he had another meeting to attend.

But Obi-Wan nodded at him, just as if he'd run into him in a corridor of the Jedi Temple. He was silent, glowing blue, insubstantial enough that Vader could see the door behind him.

"I must get more sleep," Vader muttered grimly to himself. He wasn't much in the habit of monologue nowadays, not with every breath a challenge, but he thought he could afford the small indulgence.

"I imagine that is difficult for you, nowadays," Obi-Wan said directly into his mind. He seemed sad.

Vader reached out automatically, but there was nothing there to choke. He could see Obi-Wan, feel him in the Force, but his body wasn't there to act upon. He clutched at air.

"It is none of your business!" Vader growled.

"You have always been my business, Anakin," Obi-Wan said.

"And you see the result," Vader answered.

Obi-Wan shook his head. He looked disappointed in him. Anakin had always hated that look. In a moment, Obi-Wan would say something about the Jedi code and Anakin's constant failure to live up to it. That useless, arbitrary set of words had cost him everything that mattered in his life.

"I've seen your son," Obi-Wan said mildly. "The boy is strong in the Force. With some training, perhaps…"

"I will train him," Anakin said, his heart beating wildly against his chest.

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Another has that task."

Disappointment welled up in him, and then Vader pushed it down. Obi-Wan wasn't real. Death was death, even for a Jedi. He was stressed and torturing himself imagining his old master. He should go to his meeting and put this ridiculous fantasy away.

"You aren't real," Vader said. He shut his eyes, imagined Obi-Wan disappearing.

"I am as real as you are," Obi-Wan said. "Search your feelings; you know it to be true."

Vader slammed his hand into the door. Obi-Wan was silent. The pain reverberated up his arms into his stumps. He liked it because it was honest. It did not lie to him. Existence was suffering.

"No," he said to himself, not opening his eyes.

When Anakin -- Darth Vader -- came back to his quarters, much later, they held no ghosts except the ones he brought with him.


End file.
